This TV Is Also a Piece of Art

Samsung’s The Frame is a television screen that looks just like art when it’s off.

I spent six months finding the perfect dining room table and even longer to find just what to hang over the Carrara marble fireplace in our circa 1903 brownstone apartment. I considered the oversize painting of Thingvellir I found at an Icelandic auction house, a panel of crewel embroidery from Nantucket, and ultimately settled on a massive antique gilded mirror that looked as if it had been there all along.

The one thing I refused to consider? A TV.

I’m an almost obsessive TV watcher, but I still wince when I walk into an otherwise lovely room and a giant screen is the first thing I notice. My Amore doesn’t want a TV in our bedroom for the normal reasons; I don’t want one because I simply don’t want to sit up every morning and peer at a big black rectangle. I have kept an eye out for solutions to the TV conundrum over the years: hiding it away in an armoire, covering it with a print that retracts at the touch of a button, having it rise up from a trunk on a massive motorized lift, camouflaging it as part of a gallery wall, and on and on. Then the clouds parted, angels sang, and a beam of light directed my Google search (I’m only exaggerating a bit here) towards a new TV that can just about pass as art—no camouflage, furniture, or decor trickery needed.

Samsung’s Yves Béhar–designed The Frame TV, released earlier this year, is designed to look like a piece of art with a completely flush mount, thin frame, motion sensor (to turn on and off the “art mode”), brightness sensor (to perfectly calibrate the display), and an invisible connection so there isn’t a mess of cords to ruin the effect. I decided to give it a test drive.

About a week later, a massive 65” TV was mounted on my living room wall—a 65” black rectangle.

What had I done? I decided to reserve judgment for a few more minutes, snapped on the white frame (you can choose from walnut, beige wood, or white), and turned it on. A seriously vibrant picture filled the screen thanks to the 4K resolution, which, frankly, meant little to me other than knowing that it was going to make future Game of Thrones viewing parties quite epic.

The real surprise came when I hit the power button a second time. Rather than the screen going black, it switched to a graphic piece of art called L’Eau Met Deux Flammes by Remed. I scrolled through the 100 preloaded art options (you can also add your own images or subscribe to the library of hundreds more) and fiddled with adding realistic matting to each.

I walked around the room, checking out the screen from different angles, and realized that I was sizing up The Frame as I would any other print or painting I had just introduced to my space.

To call this a TV is almost unfair. It’s essentially a giant digital picture frame that can also play my favorite shows.

Later that week, my Amore and I threw a dinner party. At this point, I was displaying a hyper-detailed black and white photo of a zebra—it’s not something I would usually select, but I was transfixed by how I could differentiate every strand of hair in the mane. One guest arrived and walked right over to it, standing a few feet back, as one would at an art gallery.

Momentarily fooled!

Huzzah!

I showed her the remote and we cycled through some other options before settling on Row of Figs and Bowls by Holly Coulis. “Man, it looks like you could just touch it,” she said, referring to the beveled edge of the white modern mat we selected. The figs remained throughout dinner, while the TV itself remained a topic of conversation. “I just keep looking at the painting,” said one guest, before quickly correcting herself, “I mean, TV.”

Once the sun set and we were dining by candlelight, it was hard not to notice the glow emanating from the screen. “At second glance, it looks like a TV,” said one of my girlfriends at that point, referring to the glow and the telltale dimensions, “but it’s a seriously good-looking TV, so I don’t care.”

And when, several bottles of wine later, we decided to watch The Fifth Element at 1 a.m., that was when the glorious giant screen hooked the guys, my Amore included.

Editorial Note: Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any partner brands/company(s), beauty & lifestyle brands, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities, unless specified.

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